Mobile responsive websites and local planning departments in the US: Opportunities for the future

As use of mobile technology grows rapidly, planning agencies experiment and adopt new policies to accommodate this increase. While a significant body of literature has extolled the growth and opportunity this technological change presents, little is looking about its use by local government and urban planning organizations. This research investigates whether planning departments are capable of responding to increased mobile users given their current web and information technology tools, applying a replicable method for benchmarking website capacity. Based on a 2014 survey of planning department websites (N = 523), this study evaluates whether or not web technology, in planning departments, is tracking growth in mobile technology finding that while 99% of planning agencies have a web presence, very few planning websites have mobile responsive frameworks. Additionally, few websites have online GIS or e-permitting capability. Of those with such capacity, many use a common content management system for data management. These findings offer key design lessons for cities that want to pursue responsive websites that better match the user profile of the trend toward accessing websites from smartphones and tablets—providing useful and timely information to citizens, and respond to changing user needs.

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